The Task Force admitted poor data quality. It reports, “Quality issues
across studies included failure to measure or acknowledge relevant factors such
as the contribution of fluoride from other sources or access to dental care.
Most of the studies also had measurement issues; many did not blind the
examiners, and across studies there was a lack of consistency among indices used
to measure caries and fluorosis.”

NRC reveals that fluoride poses risks
to the thyroid gland, bones, diabetics, kidney patients, high water drinkers and
others and can severely damage children's teeth. NRC concluded that EPA's current MCLG [Maximum Contaminant Level Goal] is too high to protect health. EPA failed to heed NRC's advice even though EPA asked NRC to do this fluoride toxicology research for them. Warnings to avoid mixing infant formula with fluoridated water emerged after NRC's conclusions were publicized, with the American Dental Association leading the standpede of government and health organizationsissuing cautionary advice.

The Surgeon General's 2000
report identified oral health as a "silent epidemic,” despite 55 years of
fluoridation, at that time.And, nothing changed since then. Tooth decay is a crisis in all fluoridated cities and states
despite dozens of reports, meetings, hearings, webinars, conferences, the hiring of state fluoridation consultants, dental directors and conducting fluoridation
spokesperson
training.

This is not a safety study but sets limits on fluoride intake by age group and describes different fluoride sources, some of which have higher fluoride levels than the EPA allows in public water supplies. For example, "brewed tea contains fluoride at concentrations ranging from 1 to 6
mg/liter depending on the amount of dry tea used, the water fluoride
concentration, and brewing time." EPA set 4 mg/L as the maximum contaminant level of fluoride in public water supplies - a level too high to protect health according to the NRC Fluoride Panel in 2006. Yet, the CDC doesn't inform Americans that this level found in some teas can be equally as harmful as consuming highly fluoridated water.6)National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Government, A Systematic Review of the Efficacy and Safety of Fluoridation, 2007"This report has been used extensively in Australia in efforts to get more communities fluoridaed there, especially in Queesland. However, This "report is little more than a duplication of large chunks of the York Review but without the caveats the York Review provided," according to Connett, Beck, and Miklem in their carefully references book "The Case Against Fluoride." Even though this report came out after the extensive and detailed US NRC report of 2006, The only reference this report made to the NRC report and it's 1100 references was a brief mention in its introduction."Moreover, while claiming that there was no evidence to support any health effects from fluoridation at 1 ppm, nowhere did [they] acknowledge that practically no health studies had been conducted on this matter in Australia or, indeed, in any other fluoridating country," says Connett, et al.

· 7)
World Health Organization, Nutrients in Drinking Water, 2005This report mainly discusses desalination as a source of drinking water. "WHO emphasizes that in setting national standards forfluoride it is particularly important to consider climatic conditions, volumes of water intake, and intake of fluoride from other sources (e.g. food and air)," which the CDC and no other US government agency does."

And, by the way, fluoride is neither a nutrient nor essential for healthy teeth See: http://fluoridealert.org/studies/essential-nutrient/

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

African-Americans are among the most fluoride-overdosed
populations, afflicted with dental fluorosis (discolored teeth), but who still
suffer with higher tooth decay rates. Civil Rights leaders are calling for an
end to fluoridation. And high level government officials working with Organized
Dentistry try but fail to convincethese leaders'to ignore the evidence apparently protecting fluoridation
instead.

Fluoridation
was launched in the 1940’s with the mistaken belief that fluoride was an
essential nutrient required to be ingested for healthy teeth. Modern science disproves
all that. Fluoride’s benefits are topical; but risks are systemic.
Fluoride is a drug with side
effects, contraindications and overdose fears.

42%
of African American adults have untreated dental disease, compared to 22%
of White Americans.

Untreated
tooth decay among children ages two-eight is twice as high for Hispanic
and African American children, compared to White children.

No valid
evidence proves fluoridation changes the “existing
differences in tooth decay across socioeconomic groups,” reports the
trusted and objective UK-based research Group, the Cochrane Collaboration. Cochrane also reports that
fluoridation’s claimed reductions in tooth decay were
based on biased and scientifically invalid research.

Presidential Executive Order 12898 (2/11/1994) “directs federal agencies to identify and address the
disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of
their actions on minority and low-income populations,”according
to the EPA. But federal agencies fail to inform minorities of their
heightened risk of fluorosis from government-promoted fluoridation
schemes.

In spite of higher decay rates, dental fluorosis
– white spotted, yellow, brown and/or pitted teeth (See pictures: http://fluoridealert.org/issues/fluorosis/), which is the outward sign of fluoride toxicity, is more
prevalent and severe in African-Americans and Hispanics. No research is
conducted to learn if fluoride also damaged the bones of those with dental
fluorosis.

In 2005, 58% of Blacks had
dental fluorosis compared to 32% of Whites, according to a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) request.FOIA documents

Government health
authorities knew over 50 years ago that black Americans suffered
disproportionately from dental fluorosis solely from water fluoridation, but
chose to keep it confidential.

In 1945, way before fluoridated toothpaste and
dental products were widely used or even invented, Grand Rapids, Michigan, experimentally added fluoride
chemicals into the water supply (the first city to do so) anticipating that
children’s tooth decay would decline without causing too much dental fluorosis.
But, “negroes in Grand Rapids had twice as much fluorosis than others,”
according to a January 10, 1962 internal memorandum, from a U.S. Public Health Service
official, F.J. Maier.

Based on this, Maier asked,
“In a community with a larger number of negroes (say in Dekalb County, Georgia) would this tend to change our
optimum fluoride levels?”

Protecting
fluoridation at the expense of African-Americans Maier wrote “Would this
observation indicate more studies in case opponents use this finding?”

No change was made. Worse,
government officials still have taken no steps to educate the black community
about their heightened dental fluorosis risk.

Modern day government
officials seem to be just as protective of fluoridation. FOIA-revealed documents
show a scramble among top level federal government officials in 2011, including the
Surgeon General’s Chief of Staff, working closely with Organized Dentistry to
devise strategy and have special meetings to presumably change the opinions of
Civil Rights leaders who newly opposed fluoridation and still do.See documents
here:

Even though they are fluoride-overdosed,
minority groups have the highest rates of tooth decay, tooth loss, untreated
tooth decay and are least able to get dental care. Eighty percent of dentists
refuse Medicaid patients.Medicare
doesn’t include dental benefits because the American Dental Association lobbied
against its inclusion.130 million
Americans don’t have dental insurance. Many with insurance can’t afford
dentistry’s high out-of-pocket expenses.

Fluoridation is newly promoted by to benefit the
low-income folks who generally aren’t welcomed into dental offices. As a
result, hospital ERs are flooded with victims priced out of dental care.One hundred and one people died in hospitals
as a consequence of untreated tooth decay, according to the Journal of the American Dental Association.

From 1 – 5% of the population is allergic to or
intolerant of fluoride.Studies
link fluoride to many
other health problems. Everyone should have the freedom to choose the chemicals they put in their bodies.

The
most used fluoridation chemicals are hydrofluosilicic acid (HFA), waste
products of phosphate fertilizer manufacturing never safety-tested in humans or
animals. HFA is allowed to contain trace amounts of lead,
arsenic and other toxins which are never purified out before injecting into the
public’s water supplies.

Lead is linked
to more tooth decay.In 1995 Stevens reported, “Of
impoverished black children aged three to five living in American inner cities,
90% have elevated blood-lead levels.”Other studies show that fluoridation chemicals enhance blood lead uptake
when lead is already in the environment (Masters & Coplan; Macek)

The FDA regulates fluoride as a drug for topical
application but considers fluoride for ingestion as an “unapproved drug.” The
EPA regulates fluoride as a water contaminant. The US Centers for Disease
Control promotes fluoridation, and has hired a PR agency to help them. But CDC
says it is not responsible for determining fluoridation’s safety. Actually, no
federal agency either oversees fluoridation or informs sub-populations of their heightened
fluorosis risk.

Since no American is fluoride-deficient; but too
many are dentist-deficient, a viable solution is to legalize Dental Therapists (DT)
in the US who need just two years training to do simple dentistry as they have
successfully done in many other developed countries. Minnesota and Alaska have already.Other states are trying.But Organized Dentistry in the US lobbies against DTs
legalization – some say it’s to preserve dentists’ lucrative monopoly

Jonathan Kozol describes life in the fluoridated
Bronx (NYC) in his 1991 book, Amazing
Grace (NYC has been fluoridated since 1965)

“Bleeding
gums, impacted teeth and rotting teeth are routine matters for the children I
have interviewed in the South Bronx. Children get used to feeling constant pain. They go to
sleep with it. They go to school with it. Sometimes their teachers are alarmed
and try to get them to a clinic. But it’s all so slow and heavily encumbered
with red tape and waiting lists and missing, lost or canceled welfare cards,
that dental care is often long delayed. Children live for months with pain that
grown-ups would find unendurable. The gradual attrition of accepted pain erodes
their energy and aspiration. I have seen children in New York with teeth that look like brownish,
broken sticks. I have also seen teen-agers who were missing half their teeth.
But, to me, most shocking is to see a child with an abscess that has been
inflamed for weeks and that he has simply lived with and accepts as part of the
routine of life. Many teachers in the urban schools have seen this. It is
almost commonplace.”

In fact, according to an April 2015 Indian
Health Services report, despite wide implementation of
fluoridation, topical fluorides, dental sealants and oral health education, three-quartersof American Indian/Alaskan Natives 5-year-olds have tooth decay - the highest level of
any population group in the US.

When the Public
Health Service first endorsed fluoridation in the early 1950s, the National
Research Council (NRC) estimated that the “safe level” of fluoride is exceeded
when “more than 10 to 15 percent of children” have “the mildest” type of
fluorosis. The CDC now reports that up to 60% of US 12-15 year-olds are
afflicted with dental fluorosis – up to 3% is moderate/severe.

Black children
now far exceed the NRC’s safety threshold. One study from fluoridated Augusta, Georgia found 17% of black
children suffering from advanced forms (moderate and severe) of fluorosis, the
kind of fluorosis that was once only seen in naturally high-fluoride
communities. (Williams 1990).

Diabetics often drink a lot of water and
therefore consume more fluoride.Fluoride doesn’t boil out or dissipate like chlorine does.It condenses in water upon boiling. There is
no dispute that too much fluoride is extremely unsafe and unhealthy.

Sugar
Causes Cavities – Not Fluoride Deficiency

The single cause of tooth decay is sugar. “Modifying factors such as fluoride and
dental hygiene would not be needed if we tackled the single cause—sugars,”
report researchers in the Journal of Dental Research

In fact, “Procter & Gamble,
GlaxoSmithKline, and Colgate itself, had long ago launched products with the
maximum amount of fluoride allowed by health authorities. Yet caries remaine a
significant threat to public health in many countries, both developing and
developed,” according
to the Harvard Business Review.

Recently
uncovered internal documents from 1959 to 1971 show the sugar industry
successfully manipulated the National Institute of Dental Research to take the
focus off of sugar as a proven decay causer in favor of unproven therapies
including fluoride use. (PLOS
Medicine)

Heavy consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is almost
double among more impoverished children and teens compared to better-off
counterparts. African-American youth saw twice as many TV ads for
sugar-sweetened beverages than white youth, and that ad spending on
Spanish-language TV had increased 44 percent in the last three years, according
to the Philadelphia
Inquirer

Booth
writes, “Researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill arecalling for renewed policy effortsto address the long-ignored impact of sugar intake on
children’s oral health. Citing the influence of special interest groups such as
the sugar, food, and drink industries, experts seem to agree that advocates and
policymakers must redouble their efforts aimed at improving diet and
restricting sugar intake in accordance with well-established guidelines such as
those endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO).”

IT’S NOT KNOWN FOR
SURE WHY AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE MORE DENTAL FLUOROSIS PRONE; BUT SOME THOUGHTS:

1)
According to the CDC,
it may be a result of “biologic susceptibility or greater fluoride intake.”
(Beltrán-Aguilar et al., 2005).

2) African
Americans consume significantly more total fluids and plain water, and thus receive
more fluoride from drinking water, than white children (Sohn et al., 2009). In
fluoridated Detroit, studies
show that, even
when fluoridated water was the most consumed beverage, tooth decay rates were extensive when diets poor

3)
According to CDC, “non-Hispanic blacks had a lower prevalence of breastfeeding
initiation than nonHispanic whites in all but two states…” Human milk is very low in fluoride.Formula made with fluoridated water will have
100 to 200 times more fluoride than a breastfed baby.

4) Leite et
al. (2011) report that rats treated with both lead and fluoride had worse
dental fluorosis than rats treated with fluoride alone. Thus it is possible
that children with lead exposure will be more susceptible to developing dental
fluorosis. African-Americans in the inner-city have had more exposure to lead than
white children.

5)
Fluoride’s toxicity is exacerbated by inadequate nutrition; including lower
intakes of iodine and calcium. Certain racial groups are more likely to be
lactose intolerant than others and may be indicative of lower rates of
calcium-rich milk consumption. Calcium also protects the body from fluoride
toxicity and is the antidote for fluoride poisoning.

More
information can be obtained from The Fluoride Action Network’s submission on “Water
Fluoridation and Environmental Justice,” a report submitted to the
Environmental Justice Interagency Working Group September 2015:

Additionally,
cryolite is a fluoride containing pesticide which is used on fresh vegetables
and fruits, is allowed to leave behind fluoride residues of up to 7 parts per
million. Sulfuryl fluoride, a post harvest fumigant,
also leave fluoride remains on food.

The
water supply should never be used to deliver drugs or nutrients to the entire
population prescribed by legislators, delivered by water engineers (and not
side-effect describing pharmacists) and dosed based on thirst and not age,
weight health and need. People need the freedom to choose what they put into
their bodies and how much.

***

Since
fluoride is not essential, instead of an RDI (recommended Daily Intake) an
Adequate Intake (AI) was calculated to prevent moderate dental fluorosis

According to the Food and Nutrition Board, Institute
of Medicine, National
Academies, the AI for:

Thursday, October 08, 2015

I was kicked out of a free pro-fluoridation strategy session funded by my taxes and in my neighborhood.

In return for required continuing education credits, pro-fluoridation spokesperson training was offered for free to dental hygienists, at SUNY Farmingdale which is near my home. I received a free ticket; but upon arrival was told to leave by a person who didn't think I was moving fast enough. She said it was because I wasn't a hygienist. The below Freedom of Information obtained emails shows the chatter about me.

Apparently, the teachers are ill-equipped to respond to their expected tough questions from me. I'm never hostile, By now, they should know that. I was a member of the Nassau Suffolk Oral Health Coalition until they created a new requirement to pledge to be pro-fluoridation in order to remain a member and in order to get me to leave which I did quietly.

This fluoridation spokesperson meeting was funded by the NYS Department of Health and held in a tax-payer funded institution. The OK to exclude me came from dentist J.V. Kumar who at the time headed the NYS DofH Dental Bureau (He now works in California)

On March 31, 2015, Mercedes Susi, Grant Project Coordinator for the New York State Dental Foundation informed Erin Knoerl, MPH, NYS Dept of Health's fluoridation coordinator that "FAN Has been signing up for our fluoride events and children's dental health workshop. It is their media director Carol Kopf. How is she not smart enough to know to use an alias? Anyhow, I will be removing her from the events(I wasn't representing FAN [Fluoride Action Network] and never said I was. I also wasn't representing the NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation which worked diligently to keep Long Island fluoridation-free nor was I representing the Levittown Safe Water Association which stopped 29 years of fluoridation in 1983) I use my real name because I have nothing to hide but apparently these fluoridationists have something they don't want the public to know about.)

Erin was glad to be informed and asked Kumar what to do about me. He said it's OK to exclude me. How is that legal?

On April 22, 2015, Meg Atwood said she knows how to handle me. Just let her know. Mercedes Susi acknowledged that I may have died out (?)

I think Atwood was the angry lady who wanted me out faster than I was moving.

Wednesday, October 07, 2015

The chemical fluoride
(hydrofluosilicic acid), purposely added to most US water supplies, doesn't
treat the water but does treat the water drinker who is told fluoride is a safe
and effective cavity fighter. But it's neither.

A 1940's concept, water
fluoridation's goal was for every faucet in America to dispense one milligram fluoride (sodium
fluoride) daily via approximately 1 quart of water for the benefit of children
only (up to age nine). It was mistakenly believed that swallowed fluoride
incorporated into young children's developing teeth making them decay resistant.
However, modern researchers discovered that fluoride ingestion only causes
adverse effects (tooth and bone damage, etc) and that fluoride’s perceived
benefits are only topical.So there’s no
longer any scientifically valid reason for swallowing fluoride or continuing
water fluoridation.

In fact, just this year
(2015) one of the most trusted research bodies, the UK-based Cochrane
Collaboration, was the latest research body to reveal that no valid evidence
exists to prove fluoridation helps the poor, adults or that stopping
fluoridation increases decay rates. Cochrane reports that fluoridation may reduce cavities in children (2
primary teeth or 1 permanent tooth) but cautions these studies have “high risk
of bias” and were mostly done before preventive measures were widespread, e.g.
fluoridated toothpaste and sealants

Fluoridation came
at a time when scientists discovered health-requiring nutrients prevented
“diseases,” such as Vitamin C deficiency caused scurvy, vitamin D deficiency
caused rickets, etc.So dental
researchers thought their magic bullet against tooth decay was fluoride. Many
studies, research grants and decades later, we now know that teeth don’t need
fluoride at all.Fluoride-deficiency
does not cause tooth decay.Rotten diets
cause rotten teeth and no amount of fluoride changes that.

Public health officials
predicted fluoride would eradicate tooth decay like vaccines prevented some
diseases but they were wrong. Today, the US is facing a tooth decay epidemic
after 70 years of fluoridation, 60 years of fluoridated toothpaste, a glut of
fluoridated dental products (and in higher concentrations), a fluoride-saturated
food supply and fluoride-containing medicines.Up to 60% of US adolescents are afflicted with fluoride-overdose symptoms
– dental fluorosis (white spotted, yellow, brown and/or pitted teeth) but 50% of
them still have cavities. Tooth decay crises are occurring in all fluoridated
cities and states.See:
http://www.FluorideNews.Blogspot.com

Also back in the 1940’s, fluoride
tablets were first prescribed to and recommended for children who live in
communities that wouldn't or couldn't fluoridate with no or very poor research
to back that up.

Fluoride supplements still haven’t been safety tested
by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). They were "grandfathered" in
because sodium fluoride was already being sold pre-1938 when drug testing laws
were enacted.Sodium fluoride was sold
as a rat poison.The FDA says,
“We
don't have information on the medical uses of fluoride before 1938.”

Many
modern reviews conclude that fluoride supplementation is useless and harmful
including the Cochrane Collaboration which reported fluoride supplements
fail to reduce tooth decay in primary teeth
and permanent teeth cavity-reduction is dubious.

Studies now show
tooth decay rates are virtually the same in fluoridated and non-fluoridated
communities, alike. In fact, some non-fluoridated communities enjoy lower tooth
decay rates.

Dental fluorosis has gotten so bad that some dental experts
say that it costs more to repair teeth damaged by fluoride than would have been
saved had water fluoridation actually reduced tooth decay.

HOW WE
GOT INTO THIS MESSAt the turn of the last century, healthy,
wealthier residents of the Southwest US had unusually ugly teeth. They called it
"Colorado Brown Stain." Dental researchers sought to discover the source of this
disfiguring tooth malformation. The culprit was high levels of natural calcium
fluoride in the water. Since these ugly teeth resisted decay, well-meaning but
misguided dentists assumed the fluoride also caused the teeth to resist decay.
However, they overlooked calcium which we now know is essential for healthy
teeth..

Dentists always
settle where people can afford them – something that hasn’t changed today.So what they actually discovered was that a
healthy lifestyle creates decay-free teeth and that fluoride discolors teeth.
This had already been proven by dentist Weston Price in his 1939 book,
“Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.”

In another highly unbelievable move, the dentists
convinced public health people to experiment with this new fluoride discovery.
They hypothesized that, if natural fluoride (calcium fluoride) in drinking water
makes teeth resist decay, let's see if artificially fluoridating a town's water
supply with sodium fluoride makes any difference. (Calcium fluoride is much less toxic than sodium
fluoride because calcium binds tightly to fluoride.Calcium is the antidote for fluoride
poisoning)

So they used all the people in a few cities like
Grand
RapidsMichigan
and NewburghNew
York
as their guinea pigs. In Newburgh,
NY,
they added sodium fluoride into the water supply in 1945 and left Kingston,
NY,
unfluoridated to act as the control.

They prematurely declared
fluoridation a success after only five years even though the teeth of the
children who were born into the experiment hadn’t even erupted yet. They said
fluoride was safe because they examined school children who weren't sick two
weeks before the examination date - virtually eliminating the very children who
may have been made ill by the fluoride. And they never even checked out the
adults. Long range and brain effects weren’t even considered.

Ten years
later, the State University of New York found that children in fluoridated
Newburgh
had more cortical bone defects and higher rates of hemoglob anemia. Recent
studies show that tooth decay and fluorosis rates are higher in fluoridated
Newburgh
than never-fluoridation Kingston.

And
what's even more perverse is that the chemical used to fluoridate your drinking
water is an industrial waste product that, along with fluoride, purposely puts
lead, arsenic, and other toxins into the public water supply.

The
silicofluorides haven't even been safety tested in animals. With the map of the
USA
as a laboratory, researchers are finding that silicofluorides increase
children's lead absorption, increases women's risk of hip fractures, increases
dental fluorosis, can lower IQ and contribute to cancer risk and DNA damage.
Fluoridation has provided a lucrative sector for researchers to apply for
federal grants to study the after effects of the crazy decision to put fluoride
into humans' water supply and then see what happens.

Over 67% of US communities
fluoridate and most foods and beverages sold in the US
are made with that water. US children are overdosed with fluoride whether rich
or poor, healthy or malnourished from various sources. No human is, or ever was,
fluoride deficient. So it's not a surprise that after 55 years of pushing
fluoride (now 70) as a panacea to tooth decay, the US Surgeon General reported
in 2000 that an oral health epidemic exists among the poor and certain minority
groups, who most often already live in fluoridated communities. If their bodies
were nourished, their teeth would prosper. But instead dentists are lobbying
legislators all over the US
to fluoridate water supplies - even when the people have voted against it and
even when the studies say fluoride is hurting our children. Meanwhile, the
American Dental Association reported to the press on June
16, 2000
that they have a new cavity fighting tool -
calcium.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Fluoridation protectionists
have faith in fluoridation; but fluoridation research reviewers need science. And it's just not there.

The trustedUK-based
Cochrane Group is yet another respected scientific research body to find that fluoridation’s benefits are built upon a house of cards (June 2015). Cochrane reports that studies purporting to show fluoridation’s
ability to reduce tooth decay are out-dated, have a high risk of bias and were conducted before
the widespread use of fluoridated dental products, in other words - scientifically
invalid. Unlike the US Centers for Disease Control and the American Dental Association which work very closely together with industry promoting
fluoridation, Cochrane does
not accept commercial or conflicted funding which Cochrane says “is vital
for us to generate authoritative and reliable information, produced by people
who can work freely, unconstrained by commercial and financial interests.”

Fluoridation is newly framed
as a boon to poor kids. But, Cochrane reports, “There is insufficient evidence
to determine whether water fluoridation results in a change in disparities in
caries [cavities] levels across SES [socio-economic-status or income]."

Other untrue arguments
fluoridationists present to too-trusting governing bodies aren’t supported by valid science either
e.g. fluoridation benefits adults and tooth decay rates go up when
fluoridation is stopped. Cochrane could find no proof that this is true.

As is often the case, new
information doesn’t stop organized dentistry from spinning the results to
protect and promote fluoridation.

The Cochrane’s fluoridation
review was conducted using a precise scientific method over a necessary period
of time. It took the British
Dental Association (BDA) less than one day to spin Cochrane’s results via a news
release, cherry-picking data to report favorably - that fluoridation reduces cavities by up
to 35%. Cochrane answered its critics on its blog

The BDA's figure is based on
the poor and biased science, revealed by Cochrane, which shows a child’s fluoridation “benefit” is just less than two primary teeth or one permanent tooth over their lifetimes. Even if
this “benefit” was based on sound-science, this small decay
reduction doesn’t justify the hundreds of millions of dollars poured into
fluoridation schemes, lobbyists, hand-outs, research reviews, strategy meetings, spokesperson
training and fluoridation consultants and PR agents hired by the CDC and many states and organizations to protect and promote fluoridation. The costs to remedy fluoride's health-damaging effects add to the country's financial burden.

According to Dr. Stan Litras BDS BSc, Cochrane pooled old data from as long as 70 years ago when decay rates were 10 times greater than today. Thus the slim cavity reduction Cochrane reports reflect savings over the entire period from the 1930's to the present. "This is not an indication of any reductions to be expected in contemporary society," he writes

It should be noted that the Task Review says the basis for its report is a previous 2000 fluoridation systematic review dubbed the "York Review" (McDonagh 2000). In 2003, the York (McDonagh 2000) reviewers were forced to explain: "We are concerned about the continuing misinterpretations of the evidence...We were unable to discover any reliable good-quality evidence in the fluoridation literature world-wide."

Fluoridation protectionists will always
pick apart any study or review that’s critical of fluoride or fluoridation; but
never look in their own backyard – even when objective researchers point out flaws.

It was admitted that fluoridation
gives dentistry “political viability” in a 1981 Journal of the American Dental
Association article. (“Fluoridation
Election Victory: A Case Study for Dentistry in Effective Political Action”)

In the 1940s and 1950s, dentists in their eagerness to
have a magic bullet that would enhance their professional prestige, promoted fluoridation
heavily and dismissed legitimate debate over the merits of fluoridation within
the scientific, medical and dental communities, according to an American
Journal of Public Health article by
Catherine Carstairs, PhD (June 2015).

Carstairs writes, “Moreover,
some of the early fluoridation studies had methodological problems, which may
have exaggerated their benefits.”

Carstairs
concludes “After 70 years of investigation, there are still questions about how
effective water fluoridation is at preventing dental decay and whether the
possible risks are worth the benefits,” she writes.

Also surprised by the lack
of valid fluoridation science, John Doull, PhD, Chairman, US National Research Council fluoride panel that
produced the groundbreaking 2006 fluoride toxicology report was quoted by Scientific
Americanas saying:

“What the com­mittee found is that we’ve gone with the status quo
regarding fluoride for many years—for too
long, really—and now we need to take a fresh look,”
Doull says. “In the scientific community, people tend to think this is settled.
I mean, when the U.S. surgeon general comes out and says this
is one of the 10 greatest achievements of the 20th century, that’s a hard
hurdle to get over. But when we looked at the studies that have been done, we
found that many of these ques­tions are unsettled and we have much less infor­mation
than we should, considering how long this [fluoridation] has been going on. I
think that’s why fluoridation is still being challenged so many years after it
began. In the face of igno­rance, controversy is rampant.”

A Nassau/Suffolk (NY) Oral Health Coalition created a rule that members
had to sign an affidavit claiming they would promote the goals of the NYS Oral
Health Coalition so that the one fluoridation dissenter would be forced to
leave or lie. I left.

On another occasion (April
18, 2015), I was rudely asked to leave a free pro-fluoridation strategy session
funded by my taxes, in my neighborhood and at a public university. Only
later did I discover through a freedom of information request that organizers
were fearful of my attendance and that the decision to oust me came from the
then Dental Bureau Chief, dentist J. V. Kumar. Ironically, they were teaching
dental hygienists how to answer questions from those who oppose fluoridation!

Authors of a 1999 textbook (revised 2005), by Burt and Eklund, admitted that the early fluoridation trials, which
are the foundation for the entire fluoridation program, “were rather crude…statistical
analysis by today’s standards, were primitive; data from the control
communities were largely neglected after the initial reports, with conclusions
based on the much weaker before-after analyses.”

"... the
panel was disappointed in the overall quality of the clinical data that it
reviewed. According to the panel, far too many studies were small, poorly
described, or otherwise methodologically flawed" (over 560 studies
evaluated fluoride use).

Even pro-fluoride dental
researchers worried that the lack of evidence-based-dentistry practiced in the US will hurt their reputations. For example, Dentist
Amid Ismail, when he was a Professor at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, in a report to the
NIH panel wrote,

"If
the current weak trend of caries research in the United States continues,
history will be harsh on all of us for our failure to use our knowledge and
resources to reduce, if not eliminate, the burden of one of the world's most
prevalent diseases."

In 2001, Cohen and Locker reported that
fluoridation may be immoral with
benefits exaggerated and risks minimized Journal of the Canadian Dental Association . "Ethically, it cannot be argued that past benefits, by themselves, justify
continuing the practice of fluoridation," they write.

“The effectiveness of water
fluoridation alone cannot now be determined…the effects of fluoride exposure
cannot be accurately assessed based solely on the fluoride content of drinking
water in an area”

In 1978, Pennsylvania Judge
John P. Flaherty who had a science background, presided over a court case (Aikenheadv. Borough of West View), where
fluoridation proponents were sworn under oath to tell the truth and were
subjected to cross-examination. He concluded,

“In my view, the evidence
is quite convincing that the addition of sodium fluoride to the public water
supply at one part per million is extremely deleterious to the human body, and,
a review of the evidence will disclose that there was no convincing evidence to
the contrary...”

In the 1950’s, Francis Bull,
the state dental director in Wisconsin, argued that cavities could be decreased by practicing
good oral hygiene, restricting sugar consumption, and improving diet, but he didn’t
trust the public to do that. Fluoride,
in his view, offered the first real preventive from dental caries, according to
Carstairs AJPH article.

“Now,
why should we do a pre-fluoridation survey?
Is it to find out if fluoridation works? No. We have told the public it
works, so we can’t go back on that.”

“You know these research people – they can’t get over their feeling
that you have to have test tube and animal research before you start applying
it to human beings.”

The “say
this; not that” approach to political fluoridation activism is still encouraged
by a pro-fluoridation activism website claimed by the AmericanAcademy of Pediatrics's that was created by a PR
agency.

Fluoridation
promoters generally use a CDC slogan as proof that fluoridation is safe and effective. But few realize that the CDC does not do
original research but relies on others’ reports and reviews, many of which do
not prove that fluoridation is safe and effective, as former CDC Oral Health
Division Director erroneously presented
to a Fairbanks, Alaska, city council.

In 2009, the American Public Health Association used the same misinformation.

Other believers presented the same misinformation more recently e.g. (slide
9)

“For the most part, the less visible the campaign, the more
likely that fluoridation was approved by the voters.”

“Conduct social marketing research with voters…This could be
valuable in developing the most effective campaign messages and finding the best
ways of promoting these messages to the public.”

“In all four sites where fluoridation was approved, fluoridation
advocates were able to write or influence the wording of the ballot. Ballot
wording becomes an important piece of voter education, the way a ballot measure
is phrased can influence how voters interpret and cast their votes.”

“The take-away message is that it cannot be assumed that people
will trust only official and/or governmental sources of health and scientific
information. The American public is becoming increasingly confident about
making their judgment about what is good science. The term “junk
science” may no longer be an effective communication strategy.”

We've had 70 years of fluoridation reaching record numbers of Americans, 60 years of fluoridated toothpaste, a glut of fluoridated dental products and a fluoride-saturated food and beverage supply. Yet, the US is still facing a tooth decay epidemic along with a steep increase in fluoride overdose symptoms - dental fluorosis (discolored teeth).The Surgeon General reported in 2000 that tooth decay is a silent epidemic in the US. Since then things have gotten worse. According to Wendell
Potter on the Huffington Post:

-- Since 2000, the number of people living in areas where they
can't easily see a dentisthas climbed from 25 million to 47 million.

-- The number
of people seeking treatment for dental problems in hospital emergency rooms--one
of the most expensive and least effective places to treat patients in pain
because of bad teeth and diseased gums--nearly doubled from 1.1 million in 2000
to 2.1 million in 2010.

-- Dental
decay is still the number one chronic illness among children.

-- More than
a third of elementary school children have untreated tooth decay; the rate is
twice as high for Hispanic and non-Hispanic black children and even worse for
Native Americans.

-- Even
though more children have dental benefits, half of all kids on Medicaid did not
get in to see a dentist in 2011, in large part because 80 percent of dentists
nationally still do not accept Medicaid payment

Harvard describes a court case about a few corporations that sell fluoridated toothpaste and reported they "had long ago launched products with the maximum amount of fluoride allowed by health authorities. Yet caries [cavities] remained a significant threat to public health in many countries, both developing and developed." Every fluoride modality promises that steep cavity declines can occur. Tooth decay should be obliterated by now if all that was true. But it's getting worse.So, why is fluoridation
still promoted?

Maybe the wheels
of government turn slowly. It took 50
years before the cancer/smoking link emerged from the scientific literature
into popular acceptance.